


if the whole world wants to fly

by cantodelcolibri



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Missing Scene, NOT a kidfic despite the summary that's just the first chap, Tarsus IV, basically we go from childhood all the way to aos verse spock prime's angst in snippets, but most is set in tos verse, i listened to Espirais by Marjorie Estiano and this is what came out of it, is briefly but emotionally touched on, rating will most likely go up, the major character death is spock but GASP we all know that bitch don't stay dead, up up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-06-15 11:51:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15412305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cantodelcolibri/pseuds/cantodelcolibri
Summary: If Jim stared long enough, he could begin to see what that painter must have seen over three centuries ago. The sky was made up of twisting patterns—speckled gold, twinkling blues, spirals of red. The longer he stared, the more he could see. And the more he saw, the less the night sky seemed like the emptiness his teacher described it to be.So, Jim turned to his older brother sitting next to him in a barren cornfield on a cold dewy evening and asked, “Sam? What’s past the sky?”“Another sky. A vaster one.” said Sam, and his voice was full of the same awe that filled Jim. “So infinite we cannot even begin to comprehend it.”“And beyond that?” Jim asked.“Worlds.” Sam breathed.





	1. a sky beyond the sky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shifting spock and jim pov

<-⚫-><-⚫-><-⚫->

If he stared long enough, he could begin to see what that painter must have seen over three centuries ago. The sky, dark as it was, was alight with colors- twisting patterns of speckled gold, twinkling blues, spirals of red. The longer he stared, the more he could see. And the more he saw, the less the night sky seemed like the emptiness his teacher described it to be. 

So, Jim turned to his older brother sitting next to him in a barren cornfield on a cold dewy evening and asked, “Sam? What’s past the sky?”  

“Another sky. A vaster one.” said Sam, and his voice was full of the same awe that filled Jim. “So infinite we cannot even begin to comprehend it.” 

“And beyond that?” Jim asked. 

“Worlds.” Sam breathed. 

Jim turned his wide hazel eyes back onto the glittering canvas stretched out above them. In the distance, he could see the shipyard, and from its chimneys he saw dark plumes of smoke reach up into the sky, like the cypress trees of the painting. Riverside’s lights sparkled in the distance, and the forest that lay beyond it shadowed the sleeping parts of the town in darkness. 

Jim dug his fingers into the moist earth and turned his gaze back up to the stars. He smiled and daydreamed about distant worlds as the night passed.   

 

|~◯~|~◯~|~◯~|

Spock stared at the screen of his learning tablet in frustration. Its red blinking advisory of ‘AGE RESTRICTION- PLEASE SEEK GUARDIAN APPROVAL’ taunted him as it barred him from the information he sought. It was a simple query. He did not understand why the learning program was restricting his access to the information net. 

With all alternative options exhausted, he was left with only one other choice to sate his curiosity. He abandoned the device on his woven rug, rubbed I-Chaya’s flank in goodbye, and softly padded across the hall to his sister’s room. 

He found the door ajar and decided knocking was unnecessary. He stuck his head in the open gap and called out, “Michael?”

Michael, dressed in a soft white cotton tunic with her relaxed hair slightly disheveled, turned away from her study station to regard her unexpected visitor with a curious tilt of her head. “Spock? What is it?”

She stood and went to open the door for him and grant him entrance to her room. Spock walked in and waited for her to resume her sitting position by her desk before getting to his point.

“What lies beyond the sky? Past the clouds.” He asked, fiddling with his hands clasped behind his back. He turned up his face to look at her, and saw that she frowned a bit before responding.

“You ask me?” Her voice did not register displeasure. Then what caused the frown?

“Sybok is otherwise pre-o-ccu-pied.” He answered honestly with great care to enunciate the Standard word correctly. His sister had yet to learn their own Vulcan tongue, and so he did his best to be accomodating for her sake. 

“Your tablet?” 

“It has restricted me from the data co-rre-spon-dent to my query.”

Her frown faltered, and for a second he spied a hint of a smile. “And Amanda?” 

“Mother told me to come ‘bother’ you.” He said in defeat, head hanging low. 

“And Sarek is on Earth. I see.” Her smile was wide, but she quickly smothered it, and her plump but chapped lips thinned into a straight line. “So I was your last resort.”

Spock stared at her with a blank face, and she rolled her eyes at him and motioned for him to come closer. 

“I guess ‘nothing’ and ‘infinity’ are not considered proper subjects for children under the age requirement for the Vulcan Learning Center.” Michael muttered to herself, and Spock made no comment. He waited patiently as his dark-skinned and fully human sister only four years his senior closed down her program and opened a new array that mapped out what he knew to be their planet, Vulcan. 

With a wide synchronized sweep of both her hands, she zoomed out of the array until Vulcan was nothing more than a miniscule dot on some form of grid. 

“I admit I’m not entirely confident in my understanding, Sybok would probably do a better job.” Michael said, biting her lip in a human gesture Spock had often observed both in her and their mother. 

“That is irrelevant. He is not available. Your explanation will be suffi-cient.” He looked away from her and to the screen. “Our world,” he said. 

“Your world.” She repeated with a nod. “And its trek around this system’s sun. It is an M-class planet that orbits the star 40 Eridani A, also known as Nevasa. It lies well within the habitable zone.” 

“The sun is a star.” He knew that already. “But what about the others?” 

“Other stars? They’re far away.” 

“How far? Closer than Nevasa?” 

“Spock, when you look up at the night sky, which looks bigger, the sun or the stars?” 

“The sun.” 

“Then which must be closer?” 

Spock frowned, pointed eyebrows knitting together as he stared at the diagram on the screen. He saw the sun, and dots scattered about that  _ could _ be stars, but he wasn’t sure. He could see that the other planets in their solar system lay even further away from Vulcan than Eridani A.  

“Are all stars the same size?” he asked. 

“I think so.” Michael answered, though she seemed uncertain as well. 

“Then they must be farther. Our sun is the closest star to our planet.” 

“Yes.” Michael agreed. She leaned back in her chair and she asked, “So what lies beyond the sky?”

“Nothing.” Spock said, sure of his answer and for the moment satisfied with Michael’s explanation.  

But Michael shook her head. 

“Everything.” She corrected.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know i'm late to the star trek tos party by a good few decades but what the heck. these boys got me fucked up you know i had to do it to em.


	2. before the day begins

<-⚫-><-⚫-><-⚫->

Jim watched, hidden within the withering stalks of infected crops as a troupe of soldiers marched past their hiding spot, eyes concealed by helmets but no doubt searching for him and his charges in the tall fields. He’d managed to take two of them out, something that he regretted for the loss of life and for the fact it would do nothing but please Kodos. Two less mouths to feed. 

He tasted salt on his lips, sweat and blood mixed in with something sharper. He wanted to spit to rid himself of the flavor, but he kept as still and silent as the grave his fellow colonists had not been given. Kodos’ guards’ footsteps faded away, and one of the three little bodies clinging to his legs finally gave out a whimper. They were clever enough to know they couldn’t afford to cry, and Jim was thankful that they listened when he told them gently not to make any noise. 

“I want my mom,” hiccuped a little boy with a neat cut of brown hair. Jim bit his lip and forced his mouth to let go of its grimace. The girl beside him, May, smacked the boy on the arm and hissed at him to be quiet, but Jim held out a hand to keep her from trying it again. May pouted, tears in her own eyes, and turned away from both of them. He knelt at both their sides and nodded at the second girl whose arms left his waist and instead held onto his arm. She was closer to his own age, but she was still young enough to need the comfort holding onto something solid and warm gave. 

“What’s your name?” He asked the boy in a whisper. 

His balled up fists came away from his eyes as he answered tearfully. “Kevin.”   

“Kevin. It’s nice to meet you. I’m Jim Kirk.” He offered his hand, and Kevin shook it with his left. Jim smiled at that, and nudged at the girl clinging onto him in a warning. Then he stood and offered her his hand to hold. “And yours?” he asked her sweetly.

“Risa.” She murmured, and then her hand tightened around his. “Same as my mom.” 

Jim’s smile froze on his face, and his eyes flicked back to the heavy black smoke rising from the compound half a kilometer away. He had just barely made it out with three. Only three. 

But he forced himself to unfreeze and nod at their fourth companion, who was still huddled off by herself in the stalks. “And that over there is May, she doesn’t much like to talk.”

May turned around and stuck her tongue out at them. He’d count it as a win. 

“Come on, we’re going to go for a walk. I want you all to meet a friend of mine. His name’s Thomas. It’s a bit far, but we won’t have to keep quiet the whole while.” He explained as he looked them over. The three were closer to emaciation than he was, so he offered to pick up Kevin by stretching out his arms. Kevin shook his head and balled his little fist in the baggy material of Jim’s pants. They sagged a bit, loose around Jim’s thinned waist, but didn’t slip down completely. Another win. No such thing as a no-win scenario. Tonight he’d won three times. 

And lost another few thousand. He hoped Thomas had better luck. 

His morose thoughts were interrupted by a tug on his shirt. He looked down and saw May’s dark eyes looking up at him beseechingly, and he nodded and let her jump onto him, catching her beneath the thighs with his free hand as she wrapped her arms around his neck. 

He led them through the dying fields, using the stars to navigate their way out of the maze of blackened maize and into the wide empty fields of Tarsus IV. In the cold darkness of the hours before sunrise, the night seemed almost immortal. It never seemed to end.  

It never seemed to end. Jim just wanted it to end. He wanted to be home more than he wanted the independence he’d wished for when he accepted the offer to join the settlement on Tarsus IV. He wanted to see Sam again, to be held in his mother’s arms, and hear his father’s voice. He wished he’d never wanted to see  _ worlds. _

But what he wanted more was for these children’s parents to be alive, solid and whole, not particles floating in the air around them. Jim had been on the fast-track for the Academy. He was bright for his age. He knew how antimatter chambers functioned. 

The universe was big and full of worlds. The ground was solid beneath his boots. Solid, but dying. Dying like that part of him that had looked up at the sky and wanted to fly.

 

|~◯~|~◯~|~◯~|

Shi’Kahr was a city of constant movement, efficiency and practicality married by logic, where not a second was spent on a meaningless pursuit. The people around the VSA’s main building bustled about their chores and errands, PADDS and holos pinging a nonsense melody in the rush of noise given off by transports and hovercraft. But in the shadow of the Council Hall, Spock and Sarek stood still, neither willing to be the first one to speak and break the tense silence. Spock’s blood was racing, his heart beat a discordant trill at his side, restless and in complete contrast with the stillness of his body held tight with tension and strain. 

Pride, perhaps, was what stilled both their tongues. His father’s ego was perhaps what his dismissive declination had dealt a blow against. But pride and ego were not Vulcan characteristics. 

“Father. Are you upset?”  

Sarek did not look away from the courtyard’s pruned garden of desert flora. He stared straight ahead as he answered, “Your question is illogical. Vulcans do not become ‘upset’.” 

“Nevertheless, you have comported yourself in a manner not unlike how you treated Sybok at his decision of departure.” Spock told his father, and he made sure to keep his resentment out of his voice, packing it away carefully in the back of his consciousness. He told his mother he was considering Kolinahr, but at the moment he couldn’t really deem it necessary. He was in control. He was in the right. “I do not understand the logic behind your behavior, given that, as you have just said yourself, we are not capable of feeling upset.” 

“Just as I do not understand the logic behind your decision to abandon what you have worked towards since the day you entered the Learning Center.” He still would not give Spock eye contact. “As I said in the council chambers, you made a commitment to honor the Vulcan way.” 

“You had no such reservations when Michael chose to join Starfleet.” Spock pointed out. 

“Michael wasn’t granted admittance to the Vulcan Expeditionary Group, my son. You know this.”

“Yes. And why was that?” Spock suddenly turned with a click of his heels, head tilted in question as he laid into his father. “She graduated in the top five percentage of her class. It seems illogical to deny her admittance when she is and was just as capable as any Vulcan. But then, it is logical to assume that the disadvantage the council saw in myself was only exacerbated by her fully human physiology. I do not wish to benefit from a bias that hindered my sister.”

“You do not know of what you speak.” 

His heart had not calmed. He had done everything, everything, asked of him. Cleared his mind of emotion, rid his face of expression, filled his days with discipline. But by his blood, he would never be considered what he was. His blood, already boiling at the Council’s words, was as difficult to temper as the cut of his tone. “Then enlighten me, father.”

“Control yourself, Spock.” Sarek observed. Spock forced himself to take one breath, then another. There was nothing he could do to absolve or remedy the scorn paid to his female family members in the past. To further linger on the emotions the injustices elicited would serve no purpose.

Behind them came the soft footfall of unmistakably human steps, unaccustomed to the greater gravity of Vulcan despite calling the planet home for over two decades. 

He turned and faced his human mother while his father maintained his back to them. 

“Ah! My husband, my son! I was informed the Council recessed rather sooner than expected.” The Lady Amanda called, and then lowered her voice as she approached and the raised volume became unnecessary. Her smile as she carefully gripped Spock’s forearms over his robes to show him her unwavering support was radiant. “How did you fare?”

“I declined their admission.” He informed her. Her eyes widened and her mouth parted in shock. At his back, his father stepped away and left, and Spock tried not to acknowledge the smug stab of satisfaction that ran through his chest. He would have a lot to meditate on that evening. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> starfleet academy next


	3. off chance encounters

<-⚫-><-⚫-><-⚫->

When the door to his apartment slid open without the bell ringing to request access, Jim knew his visitor could only be one of two people, and his mother was off-world somewhere in the Alpha Quadrant.

“Weren’t you scheduled for a double today, Bones?”

“They put you on the Republic?” McCoy’s indignant voice rang from down the short hallway. “You cheated on their test and you got _commended_ for it?”

Jim looked up from the pages of his antique copy of Moby Dick and saw Leonard dump his shoulder bag on their kitchenette counter with a scowl on his face that put wrinkles on his brow that had no right being on one so young. Not that Kirk really helped matters.

So he shot him a cheeky grin. “I got the field commision as an ensign, yeah. With advanced command track training.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Believe it, Bones. This time next week, you’ll be pulling another double shift and I’ll be equally sleep deprived somewhere in the--”

“Jim, I thought you didn’t _want_ command. Why the sudden switch from engineering? Why now?”

McCoy’s question wiped the smile from his face. He fidgeted onto his back where he was laying on the couch, turned the page of his book and tried to sound nonchalant, staring at the inky letters without processing them.

“My commendation was for ‘clever thinking’, Bones. I beat the Kobayashi Maru, and anyone that does that is certainly wasted down in the engine rooms. At least that’s what the Academy has in opinion.”

Leonard scoffed at him and nudged Jim’s head aside when he sat himself down on the arm of their couch. “C’mon Jimmy, don’t take me for a fool. This is exactly the outcome you wanted when you signed up for that test the first two times. Damn it man, the only reason why we became friends is because you swore up and down you wanted nothing to do with the stars that you couldn’t get from your books. And now you’re saying you’re going out there, not as a red-shirt but as a godforsaken _gold?”_

“This war needs winning, Bones.” Jim said tiredly. He set his open book down on his chest and stared at the soft pink sunset of San Francisco over the bay.

Leonard’s quiet breathing cut off with a short sigh. “And why’s it gotta be you that wins it?”

“It doesn’t have to be me.” He told him. “But if I can help make a difference, I think it’s time that I try, don’t you? I’m not waiting for the Klingons to come to us.”

Bones stared down at him, long and hard. Jim met his icy-blue gaze and tried to put comfort in his own honey-brown.

Then Bones gave him a long-suffering sigh and ran a hand through his already messy mop of brown hair.

“Now you’ve done it. Well, I guess I better hit the books. I’ll have to be good enough for a starship posting by the time you make lieutenant. That mess on Dramia II didn’t leave me in the Fleet’s good graces, I’ll tell you that.”

“You don’t have to-” he started to say, concerned and taken completely by surprise.

“No, but I’m going to.” Bones cut him off, and he was using that Doctor voice of his that would  do him oh so well in the future. His severe expression softened, and he ruffled Jim’s hair before standing up and heading to the kitchen to rummage through the fridge. “Someone’s got to keep your fool ass alive out there while you’re shooting for the moon. Goodness knows what else you’ll be allergic to in the horrors of _space._ Do you even know what you’re dragging yourself into? What’s out there?”

 _Worlds,_ whispered his brother Sam in his head. _Hell,_ whispered his own voice, broken with grief and the high pitch of puberty.

He lay Moby Dick out on the coffee table piled high with PADDs and coffee cups, careful to avoid stains. He followed Bones into the kitchen and grinned at the dismay on his face upon the discovery that Jim had eaten his pad thai.

“I have a good idea.” He clapped Bones on the back. He leaned against the fridge’s side and snagged an apple from the hanging bowl and took a sizable bite. Then, to improve his own mood he added with his mouth full, “I met someone interesting at the hearing today. One of the Kobayashi Maru programmers.”

“Oh yeah? They tear you a new one for trashing their code?” McCoy asked, not sounding the least bit concerned about any of Jim’s potential wounds. He shut the fridge door and started rummaging through a nearby drawer.

 _“Tweaking_ their code.” Jim corrected. McCoy smacked him in the chest with a stack of takeout menus, and Jim raised his hands to ward him back. “Besides, he didn’t seem all too upset with me, but then I suppose ‘upset’ isn’t in his nature. Actually, I’d say he almost looked amused.”

“Well, who was he?

“Some student-instructor. Lieutenant junior grade. Spock, he said his name was.”

“What kind of a name is _Spock?”_

Jim took the stack of menus and batted them against McCoy’s forehead. “A _Vulcan_ one. He told me, ‘Your solution would not have occurred to a Vulcan mentality.’ I could’ve sworn he was almost laughing with me.”

Bones pulled up his communicator, rolling his eyes at Jim’s fantasies. “A Vulcan? Smile? Ha! I think you were running a little high on adrenaline there, Jimbo.”

 

|~◯~|~◯~|~◯~|

There only existed one previous encounter between Commander Spock and the illustrious James T. Kirk before the USS Enterprise beamed aboard her new captain.

\---

Years ago, during the war and on the eve of Spock’s assignment to the ship as Science Officer under her former captain, there had been a peculiar occurence in the Kobayashi Maru simulator. Curiosity piqued, he stopped by to investigate what the gathered observers were whispering about, and why a handful of his fellow programmers waved him over the second they saw him cross into the hall.

“Spock! Over here, you won’t believe it! This kid’s taking the test for the third time!”

The lieutenant at his side shook her head. “Probably believes in that old sayin’, you know the one?”  

The programmer laughed. “Third time’s the charm?”

Spock followed their hail and stood at the observation window, looking down into the hectic scene of a starship Bridge on the brink of disaster. One of the xenolinguistics department’s proteges sat at the communications station, looking entirely unimpressed with the relaxed air of her current ‘captain’. The cadet at the helm sat leisurely, sharp eyes trained squarely on the simulator’s viewscreen. From his PADD, Spock accessed the list of the day’s testers.

Nyota Uhura, at communications.

James Tiberius Kirk in command.

Spock watched with the same sort of detached fascination one would watch a vehicle wreck as the cadet sitting in the captain’s chair dismissed his crewmates’ warnings of an incoming attack, waving their concerns off with a smile and flick of his wrist.

When the Klingons attacked and the shields were reduced to sixty percent, the instructors and programmers around Spock tittered and smiled, sure the gravity of the situation would spur their student into action.

“Well, should we, I dunno, fire back?” asked a man with a southern drawl sitting at navigation.

“No.” Cadet Kirk responded casually, eyes smiling even though his mouth didn’t break from its frown.

“Of course not.” The man sighed in exasperation and turned his attention back to his controls.

Then, Spock remembered, the power flickered for a moment. The screens depicting the wounded Kobayashi Maru and the Klingon battle cruisers froze and then resumed in their program. Spock remembered he narrowed his eyes and kept them pinned on the young man that looked for all the world as if he belonged in the chair he occupied.

The instructors’ smugness turned to nerves.   

“What is this? What’s going on?” They asked.

Spock ignored them in favor of his continued examination of the scene playing out below. One of the instructors shoved against him by accident to get a better look, his hand knocking against Spock’s on the railing for a fraction of a second. But that fraction was more than enough for Spock to catch onto his agitation.

Below, Cadet Kirk gave the order to load the photon torpedos. As another cadet obeyed, the same man at navigation shot a glare back at the captain. Spock consulted his PADD again.

Leonard McCoy, graduate of the University of Mississippi. Medic.

“Jim, their shields are still up.”

“Are they?”  

Dr. McCoy turned back to his screen, “No… They’re not.”

The uproar that followed his words was not heard within the simulator. The programmers pulled up the Kobayashi Maru’s coding, searching for the error that was allowing the unwinnable test to become wholly surmountable, going against its explicit purpose. Spock supposed they would expect him to help, but this James T. Kirk was no student of his. Neither assessment nor discipline fell within his purview.

He watched with a different sort of fascination as the cadet gave the order to fire on all enemy ships. He followed up the order with a request that the Kobayashi Maru’s crew be beamed into their nonexistent medical bay for immediate examination and relief.  

Spock recalled that the unnamed instructor at his side gasped. With bafflement evident in his tone he turned to the side and asked Spock, “How the _hell_ did that kid beat your test?”

And then Spock answered honestly, “I do not know.”

\---

“At ease,” Captain Kirk said in the present, effectively knocking Spock out of his memories. The transporter room operators and what could be spared of the command crew, previously statuesque as they stood in attention, relaxed their postures and stepped back to allow their captain to walk through to stand before his second in command.

Spock allowed himself the opportunity to look his new captain over before the whirlwind of introductions set in.

“First Officer Spock, I presume?” said the captain. Time had been kind; his build was solid, his height 7.6 centimeters less than his own, with golden brown hair untouched by gray. His honey-clear eyes held the same sharpness Spock had seen in that simulation room.

“Indeed, Captain Kirk.” he said pleasantly.

“I trust all preparations have been seen to and that we are running on schedule.”

“Aye, captain.”

His polite smile broke out into a wider, almost mischievous grin. “Thank you, Mr. Spock,” he paused and returned the once-over Spock had paid him. “I look forward to exploring what our shared _mentalities_ can discover on our five-year voyage.”

He departed with that same grin, and with a twinkle glimmering in his eye as he turned to speak to Chief Engineer Scott.

Spock blinked at his gold-clad back. That Captain Kirk remembered their first interaction, which had spanned no more than a minute, was very unexpected.

When the captain announced he would be heading up to see his Bridge, Spock stepped up to follow behind him, but the captain altered his step so that they fell together side by side on their walk to the turbolift. He kept silent, simply choosing to observe James T. Kirk work his charm on every ensign and officer they passed, all the while dealing with a sudden and entirely unwelcome thought that came out of nowhere.

 

The thought that perhaps the captain would be amenable to a game of chess.

 

Once on the Bridge, they were met with the rest of the command crew including the CMO and their head of security. Captain Kirk greeted them both amiably, pausing at the doctor’s side to whisper, tone conspiratorial: “Bones! Peter saw me off, he told me to ask you to pass his greetings on to Joanna.”

“I don’t appreciate you playing at matchmaker, Jim.” The doctor answered him, and Jim sent him a disarming smile that was the very picture of innocence. Dr. McCoy responded with an eye roll, then he playfully shoved Captain Kirk towards his chair.

The captain stalled by the command chair’s back. His right hand went up to softly stroke the length of the chair’s back, and with a final hearty pat, he gripped it and swiveled the seat to take his place at the helm.

“Thirty-two years old and in command of the flagship.” Dr. McCoy said at his left, admiring the viewscreen from his spot standing beside the chair. His tone was teasing. “Jim, I know I said to shoot for the moon, but I didn’t figure you’d make it to the stars quite so fast.”

“I may have overshot a bit,” the captain admitted sheepishly.

“Gentlemen.” Spock cut in, smoothly settling himself on the captain’s right hand side. “We are now prepared to leave spacedock.”

“Thank you, Commander. Would you care to do the honors?” Captain Kirk offered with a hand extended towards the stars visible on the screen. Dr. McCoy visibly reacted in shock, head swivelling to look at the captain and then at him. Spock took a second to answer.

“I appreciate the gesture, Captain, but I have no wish to deprive you of such an experience. The honor should be yours.”

“You idiot, what if he’d taken you up on that?” Dr. McCoy immediately turned on the captain following his response.

“It was his ship first,” the captain said with an easy shrug, completely unaffected by his Medical Officer’s lack of respect. Spock raised an eyebrow over the top of the captain’s head. Then the captain shot a quick look over his shoulder, as if he knew how Spock would react to the doctor’s behavior. Spock quickly reschooled his expression to that of disinterest, but the damage was done. Captain Kirk smirked and faced straight ahead, thumbing at the ship-wide comm on his armrest controls.

“Attention all decks, this is Captain Kirk. Prepare for departure.” He closed the comm and looked to the front. “Alright then, helmsman. Status?”

The officer seated at navigation said, “Moorings retracted, and dock controls report ready.”   

“Aft-thrusters ahead one-quarter,” said the captain. With that same twinkle shining in his eye, he commanded: “Take us out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i genuinely forgot that writing is a thing i, yknow, _do._  
>  anywho im less likely to forget if i get notifs so if u like this drop me a line or a kudos so i can get a break from work emails thatd be gr8 ajhegdjva


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